Recap: 2024 NCAA DI Cross Country Regional Championships Friday

EDITOR’S NOTE: DyeStat writers contributed to this report.

Welcome to Regional Championships Friday!

We’re about to find out which teams earn automatic bids to the upcoming 2024 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships on Saturday, November 23, at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Madison, Wisconsin. Remember that you can watch the action from the Badger State without interruption LIVE on ESPNU beginning at 10 am ET.

From The USTFCCCA InfoZone: Meets & Results | USTFCCCA Scoreboard

Keep reading to learn more about a jam-packed day of cross country.

NCAA DI Cross Country Automatic Qualifying Teams
Region	Men’s AQs	Women’s AQs
Great Lakes	No. 19 Notre Dame No. 9 Wisconsin	No. 6 Notre Dame No. 14 Wisconsin
Mid-Atlantic	No. 14 Villanova No. 18 Georgetown	No. 5 West Virginia No. 8 Georgetown
Midwest	No. 2 Oklahoma State No. 4 Iowa State	No. 19 Oklahoma State No. 23 Minnesota
Mountain	No. 1 BYU No. 6 New Mexico	No. 1 BYU No. 4 Northern Arizona
Northeast	No. 17 Syracuse No. 20 Harvard	No. 11 Providence No. 28 Syracuse
South	No. 10 Alabama RV Ole Miss	No. 7 Alabama No. 18 Florida
South Central	No. 3 Arkansas RV Tulane	No. 26 Arkansas RV Texas
Southeast	No. 13 Virginia No. 11 North Carolina	No. 17 NC State No. 15 Virginia
West	No. 12 Washington No. 15 Oregon	No. 2 Oregon No. 12 Stanford

Great Lakes Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

The Notre Dame women came away with five All-Region performers to lead them to the team title, including three individuals finishing in the top 10.

Siona Chisholm secured a third-place finish to guide the Irish in 19:35.1, with Erin Strzelecki (19:37.8) and Mary Bonner Dalton (19:49.2) finishing fifth and 10th, respectively, as the only school with three runners to finish within the top 10.

Isabel Allori notched a 14th-place finish in 19:56.2 and Gretchen Farley rounded out the top 20 in 20:03.9 to cap Notre Dame’s scoring.

Shea Ruhly ran 19:55.1 for 12th place to lead four Badger women on the All-Region team. Nora Gremban ran 19:59.8 to place 16th, Bella Jacobsen clocked 19:59.9 in 17th and Carolyn Shult finished in 20:08.7 for 22nd.

Toledo’s Mercy Kinyanjui overcame 16 placings at the first kilometer to capture the individual title in the end in 19:29.7, beating Michigan State’s Rachel Forsyth by two seconds.

Men’s 10k Championship

The 19th-ranked Irish men scored 70 points to beat No. 9 Wisconsin by 12 points and the sixth-ranked Irish women won easily over No. 14 Wisconsin 51-97.

The Notre Dame men put all five scorers in the top 25 to all earn All-Region honors, with Carter Solomon leading the way in a fifth-place effort of 29 minutes, 22.9 seconds for the 10-kilometer race.

Ethan Coleman (29:28.9, 10th), Daelen Ackley (29:33.8, 13th), Izaiah Steury (29:35.2, 18th) and CJ Singleton (29:47.7, 24th) made up the rest of the Irish’s top five scorers.

Second-place Wisconsin also put five runners on the All-Region team to secure a trip back to their home course in Madison but did so with a three-second spread between their scorers.

Rowen Ellenburg was the top Badger scorer in 29:34.2 for 14th as part of the Badgers securing individual places 14th through 17th. Big Ten champion Bob Liking and Matan Ivri both ran 29:34.8, giving Liking the edge for 15th, and Australian Olympian Adam Spencer finished in 29:35.1 for 17th. Micah Wilson completed Wisconsin’s scoring, finishing 20th in 29:37.2.

Butler’s William Zegarski held off Purdue’s Douglas Buckeridge at the line to claim the individual title, winning by a margin of 29:12.7 to 29:12.9.

Mid-Atlantic Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

West Virginia led the women’s race from the gun, with senior and Canadian Olympian Ceili McCabe leading the way. McCabe took the overall win with a time of 19:11 over the 6k distance. McCabe won the Big 12 Championships two weeks ago, and she was fourth at Pre-Nationals on Oct. 19.

The Mountaineers put all of their scoring five in the top 15, giving them 41 points. Freshman Joy Naukot, in her fourth collegiate race, finished sixth, while the trio of Sarah Tait, Emily Bryce and Madison Trippett were 10th, 11th and 13th.

A pair of Big East rivals, Georgetown’s Chloe Scrimgeour and Villanova’s Sadie Sigfstead, repeated their back-to-back finish from their conference meet two weeks ago. Scrimgeour and Sigfstead were third and fourth, respectively, in Leesburg, but they finished second and third today. Scrimgeour finished in 19:25, while Sigfstead was close behind in 19:30.

No. 20 Penn State, the host team and the third-ranked team in the Mid-Atlantic, took it out hard, coming through the halfway point in second place. Over the second half, though, they slipped, eventually finishing with 85 points, well behind Georgetown’s 58.

The individual auto-qualifiers for the national meet were Sigfstead, Penn State’s Florence Caron, La Salle’s Gwenno Goode, and Maryland’s Rose Coats.

Men’s 10k Championship

On the men’s side, Villanova continued what has been a dominant season for them, pulling away in the second half of the race to win with 50 points. Liam Murphy and Marco Langon repeated their 1-2 finish from the Big East Championships, with Murphy taking the overall win in 29:22 and Langon coming in second in 29:32.

At the halfway mark, the team race was exceptionally close; Navy, Villanova and Princeton were separated by just five points. The Wildcats benefited from several late-race surges, though, including one by freshman CJ Sullivan, who was in 38th place at the 5k mark and finished in 13th.

Princeton scored 80 points, led by a quartet of juniors – Myles Hogan, Nicholas Bendtsen, Jackson Shorten and Harrison Witt – in the top 25. They advanced to the NCAA Championships over Georgetown on a tiebreaker. The No. 29  Hoyas were in 10th place at the 1200 mark, and they gradually rose over the course of the race, but it wasn’t enough to top the Tigers. However, they are expected to make it to Nationals with an at-large bid.

The four automatic individual qualifiers for the men were Penn’s Dylan Throop, Penn State’s Brian DiCola, La Salle’s McCallum Rowe and Penn’s Luke Johnson.

Midwest Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

Recap coming soon.

Men’s 10k Championship

Recap coming soon.

Mountain Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

Pamela Kosgei of New Mexico and BYU’s women showed why they are a force to be reckoned with come next Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin.

Kosgei captured top individual honors in a loaded region with her 19:30.9 winner, putting nearly 14 seconds between her and eventual runner-up Juliet Cherubet of Texas Tech over the final 1.3k on the snow-laden course.

The top-ranked Cougars stormed to the team title with 52 points, 13 fewer than No. 4 Northern Arizona. BYU ran without Jenna Hutchins and Lexy Halladay-Lowry, but still put four athletes in the top-10, led by Riley Chamberlain in fifth place. Chamberlain split the Northern Arizona duo of Elise Stearns (fourth) and Aliandrea Upshaw (sixth). Carmen Alder, Taylor Rohatinsky and Taylor Lovell finished eighth, ninth and tenth, respectively, for the Cougars.

No. 10 New Mexico, led by Kosgei’s individual title, took a distant third place with No. 9 Utah in fourth and No. 30 Utah Valley in fifth.

Men’s 10k Championship

No. 1 BYU bided its time on a cold, snowy afternoon.

Solomon Kipchoge of Texas Tech did the opposite.

When all was said and done, though, the top-ranked Cougars and Kipchoge ended up the same place – atop their respective podiums. BYU captured the regional title with 52 points, nine fewer than No. 6 New Mexico, while Kipchoge cruised to top individual honors in 28:55.9.

The Cougars clawed their way up the standings throughout the proceedings. BYU sat fourth at 5.9k, moved up to second at 7.5k and narrowed the gap to the then-leading Lobos by 8.4k. Not long after, the Cougars – paced by Casey Clinger’s fourth-place individual finish – surged ahead of New Mexico over the final 1.6k to snag its first regional title since 2021.

The Lobos, with runner-up Habtom Samuel leading the way, snatched the second automatic qualifying spot. Two-time defending regional champion Northern Arizona finished third with 71 points with unranked Utah State a distant fourth with 152 points.

Northeast Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

No. 11 Providence dominated the women’s race, with the trio of Kimberley May, Alex Millard and Shannon Flockhart placing third, fourth, and fifth overall. The Friars scored 51 points, followed by No. 28 Syracuse with 105. No. 25 Boston College was third with 131 points, followed closely by Harvard and UConn with 144 and 151 points, respectively.

UConn junior Chloe Thomas, coming off an individual championship at the Big East Championships on Nov. 1, kept her hot streak going, taking first overall in 19:23 over the 6k distance. Thomas won the Spiked Shoe Invitational on Sept. 13 and the Paul Short Run on Oct. 5, and she took fifth at Pre-Nationals on Oct. 19. She should be considered an individual contender at the NCAA Championships next week in Madison, Wis.

Columbia senior Phoebe Anderson, who also won her conference meet two weeks ago, was second in 19:31. The other two individual qualifiers (the top four individuals from non-qualifying teams automatically qualify for nationals) were Jenna Zydanowicz from UConn and Vera Sjoberg from Boston University.

Men’s 10k Championship

The men’s race was a battle between No. 17 Syracuse, No. 20 Harvard, Cornell and No. 29 Iona. At the 8k mark, the four teams were separated by just 23 points, but Syracuse put the hammer down over the last 2k, finishing with 72 points and four runners in the top 20. Harvard had 93 points, led by individual champion Graham Blanks, who finished in 29:34.

Blanks, an American Olympian in the 5,000 meters, employed his usual sit-and-kick strategy, gradually moving his way up to the front before throwing down a 5:29 for the last 2k. He finished almost 20 seconds ahead of Syracuse junior Sam Lawler, who took second in 29:52.

Cornell and Iona were neck-and-neck in third and fourth, respectively. Cornell put up 102 points, led by senior Derek Amicon in fifth overall, while Iona had 105, led by the duo of Matt Rankin and Lachlan Wellington in third and fourth.

The automatic individual qualifiers for the men were Rankin, Wellington, Amicon, and Army’s Nathan Davis.

South Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

Former teammates Hilda Olemomoi and Doris Lemngole crossed the finish line together in the women’s 6-kilometer race in 19:30.6. Olemomoi of Florida was awarded first place and Lemngole second. They were both 22 seconds ahead of the next finisher.

Lemngole led No. 7 Alabama to the team victory as the Tide scored 63 points to No. 18 Florida’s 79.

Brenda Tuwei was third for Alabama (19:52.8) and Pheline Cheruto Mining (20:11.4) was seventh.

Gators Tia Wilson, Allison Wilson and Bethan Morley finished 12th, 15th and 16th, respectively.

No. 24 Florida State was third with 106 points and No. 16 Tennessee was fourth with 123. No. 27 Lipscomb was fifth with 134 points. All of them will await at-large selections to determine their fate.

The top four individual from non-qualifying teams are Florida State duo Agnes McTighe (fourth) and Bieke Schipperen (fifth), Loral Wynn of Ole Miss (sixth) and Ashley Jones of Tennessee (eighth).

Men’s 10k Championship

No. 10 Alabama’s men went 1-2-3 with freshman Dismus Lokira winning the 10,000-meter race in 29:30.8. Teammates Victor Kiprop (29:34.4) and another freshman, Dennis Kipruto (29:42.9) were right behind him.

Alabama’s fourth and fifth were 29th and 45th, but the Tide scored 80 points.

Ole Miss got the second automatic qualifying spot with 91 points, led by Toby Gillen (sixth in 29:51.1) and Elyas Ayyoub (seventh in 29:53.9).

Tennessee was third with 109 points, followed by Florida State with 112.

Individual qualifiers were Christopher Middleton-Pearson from Tennessee (fourth), Allan Kiplagat from Middle Tennessee  (fifth), and two from Auburn, Nickson Chebii (eighth) and Ryan Kinnane (ninth).

South Central Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

In an exciting women’s race, Arkansas edged out Texas for its 13th regional title, 80 to 81.

Paityn Noe led the Razorbacks by running off with the individual win in 18:55.8 and had a 27-second margin at the finish line over Tulane freshman duo Caroline Jeptanui (19:22.9) and Blezzin Kemutai (19:24.7).

Arkansas’ Mia Cochran was ninth and Sydney Thorvaldson was 15th.

Olivia Howell led Texas by placing fifth in 19:29.9.

Tulane was third with 107 points and LSU was fourth with 110.

Ruth Kimeli of Baylor (fourth) and Lorena Rangel Batres of LSU also qualified as individuals.

Men’s 10k Championship

Kirami Yego, Timothy Chesondin and Patrick Kiprop ran to a 1-2-3 finish in the NCAA South Central regional and the No. 3 Arkansas men won the team title with a scant 33 points to earn its auto qualifier for the NCAA Cross Country Championships on Nov. 23 in Madison, Wis.

In the season’s first 10k, the Razorback trio were all able to outkick fourth-place finisher Isaac Alonzo from Texas at Watts Cross Country Course in College Station, Texas.

Yego finished two seconds ahead of his teammates in 29:09.4. Chesondin (29:11.4) and Kiprop (29:11.8) showed that Arkansas could have front-runners next week at the NCAA Championships.

Tulane, the American Athletic Conference champion, scored 76 points to defeat Texas (84) for the second automatic qualifying spot, advancing to the program’s first national meet since 1998. The Green Wave was led by the fifth-and sixth-place finishes of Jack Jennings and Bernard Cheruiyot, plus Illia Kunin in 10th.

In addition to Alonzo, Jacob Pyeatt of Arkansas State (seventh), Dominic Kiptum of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (eighth) and Griffin Neal of Incarnate Word (ninth) earned automatic individual qualifying spots.

Texas A&M was fourth with 127 points.

Southeast Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

Grace Hartman of NC State led at every split point and held off a charge by Clemson freshman Silvia Jelego at the end to win by 0.2 seconds in 20:04.2. The Wolfpack went 1-3 with Hannah Gapes next in 20:08.3 followed by Clemson’s Judy Kosgei and the Virgina duo of Margot Appelton and Jenny Schilling.

Three-time reigning national champion No. 17 NC State – ranked just third in this region coming in – roared to their best race of the year, winning with 60 points. No. 15 Virginia gained the final automatic qualifying spot to the nationals with 85 points as No. 13 North Carolina was third with 119. Unranked Wake Forest (126) and RV Liberty (162) rounded out the top-5.

The Wolfpack had three in the top-10 with Brooke Rauber taking ninth. Freshmen Bethany Michalak (19^th) and Ellie Shea (29^th) completed NC State’s scoring five.

Men’s 10k Championship

George Couttie of Virginia Tech picked a great time for his first win of the year, moving from eighth at the 8k split to win by 2.6 seconds over Eastern Kentucky freshman Justine Kipkoech in 29:41.7. It was the second-straight regional title for Couttie, who won the DII Atlantic Region Championships last year while at Charleston (W.V.). Defending champ Dylan Schubert of Furman was third.

The team battle was a battle royal with five top-24 squads. No. 13 Virginia (79) and No. 11 North Carolina (85) earned the two automatic qualifying spots. Both had a pair of top-10 finishers – UVA with Gary Martin (eighth) and Will Anthony (ninth), while UNC countered with Ethan Strand (fifth) and Parker Wolfe (sixth).

Some at-large spots seem likely among the next teams with No. 24 Eastern Kentucky (105) and unranked Virginia Tech (128) finishing ahead of No. 5 Wake Forest (134). The Demon Deacons held out Rocky Hansen, who was runner-up to Wolfe at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational in September.

West Region

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Women’s 6k Championship

The seasonal debut by Amy Bunnage of Stanford was most welcome, winning by 2.2 seconds over the 1-2 punch of Oregon’s Silan Ayyildiz and Maddy Elmore, who just a few weeks ago were nearly ten seconds clear of anyone else in the Big Ten Championships. It was the first cross country victory by Bunnage since last year’s Pac-12 Championships.

Bunnage’s presence helped explain the team standings as the No. 12 Cardinal earned the second auto qualifying spot with 67 points in splitting team champion No. 2 Oregon (43) and No. 3 Washington (101). The Ducks had three in the top-10 with seventh-placer Anika Thompson, plus Klaudia Kazimierska (12^th) and Ali Ince (22^nd).

No. 21 Gonzaga was fourth ahead of a pair of RV squads in Portland (156) and Boise State (168), the latter edging host Washington State by one point.

Men’s 10k Championship

Washington State’s Evans Kurui ran away with the individual title, winning by 14.7 seconds after having led by as much as about 28 seconds as late as the 8.2k point. With a final time of 28:53.7, he was the only sub-29 runner and was followed closest by Portland’s Matt Strangio ahead of Valentin Soca of California Baptist, Cole Sprout of Stanford and Aiden Smith of Oregon that completed the individual top-5.

Team scoring was close as No. 12 Washington (66) edged Pacific Northwest rival Oregon (68) in gaining the two auto qualifying spots. No. 7 Stanford was next at 73 points, followed by No. 16 California Baptist (99) and No. 25 Portland (102).

Nathan Green (seventh) and Evan Jenkins (ninth) led the Huskies, whose scorers included Tyrone Gorze (14^th), Leo Daschbach (15^th) and Jamar Distel (22^nd) with a 1-5 gap of 21.0 seconds. The Ducks had three top-11 finishers behind Smith in Simeon Birnbaum (eighth) and Elliott Cook (11^th), and the Cardinal had a pair with Leo Young (10^th) joining Spout.